


Crawling Through the Shadows They Left

by Marashete



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, James Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Lots of Hurt, M/M, Slow Build, Suicide Attempt, Tony Stark &; Pepper Potts Friendship, it will get better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 00:04:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3228572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marashete/pseuds/Marashete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark has issues dealing with things. And people. But sometimes, all you need is someone who knows your language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Temporal Encroachment

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd! Please be kind. And heed my tags. This is a bumpy ride.

Pre-IM1  
Sometimes, Tony thought he heard his mother's voice, calling him to dinner, calling him to her, calling him--

  
And when he had one of those days, he felt it was his obligation to himself to get achingly, deliciously fucked up. Fucked up in that way that might leave him catatonic and struggling to breathe maybe, but as long as he teased that edge, and didn't leap over it with gilded enthusiasm, he could pretend he was coping with things healthily.

  
Things" being that he was entirely too young to be without his parents (who was he kidding? He'd been without them since he'd learned to walk.) "Things" being that everything he said, every menial tidbit of conversation, had to be dialed back because he was just so much and everyone else felt the rush behind his eyes. "Things" being that no amount of sex or drugs could erase the nails-in-his-skin feeling of loneliness. His chest was hollow with it, and nothing, no alcohol, smoke, cock, tongue, or proverbial wisdom about grief, could fill it.

  
He already had had a bit of a reputation, but he'd almost rushed into it, frenzied after they'd passed. Died. Bodies snapped under groaning, twisting, and burning metal. He was aware of the realities of his situation. So, here he was, at another party, and gearing up to let go. They'd brought the perfect thing to fade into glittering euphoria.

  
He flicked the needle, anticipating the edge of the high as it crested into perfection. He'd snorted before, and had slipped into elated haze then; shooting, he'd heard, had an earlier onset due to the direct way it infiltrated the bloodstream, a sharper high that coaxed clarity, where loudness cohorted with silence. He stuck himself with near-medical smoothness, and injected; he slipped the needle out, keeping the wince from his face, and settled back with a deep exhale. He registered someone taking the needle from him and made a comment about sharing needles. The reply was something like, "But nothing like butt-sex," and Tony couldn't help the laugh that shredded through him.

  
He wasn't sure when everything changed-- when things turned sharp and dangerous; he sought out the loneliness like he needed water, scrounging for some quiet like maybe it would help, but all he got was more broken and more all cut up. Glass in his mouth, between his teeth, and fingers and coating and biting into his skin all over and there was no escape, no escape, no escape from it all. All he wanted to do was leave, leave, leave, but then there were arms around him-- oh God, don't touch me, the glass, the _glass_ Rhodey, no-- tugging what he was holding (What was he holding? A rope? Bedsheets?) from his hands.

  
He was fighting Rhodey for it, "Let me do it, Rhodey, let me out, I need to-- I need to-- I _need to_ \--"and his friend just turned sad, desperate eyes on him and shook his head, strong hand gripping his arm hard enough to bruise and the fiery pain licking up his arm was not from the glass and there was smeared blood on his hands and dripping over Rhodey's fingers and he didn't know what happened when everything suctioned off into nothingness.

  
Waking up was disappointing.

  
He hadn't meant to say that out loud.

  
There was Rhodey again, looking like Tony had deliberately broken his favorite toy. Maybe he had a little.

  
The room was small, sterile-white, and Tony reckoned he looked broken like this, bandage, IV current, and swallowed by blankets. Tony reckoned that if anyone had bothered to look closer, before, they wouldn't have needed this picture of him to know it. But he didn't say that.

  
He regarded Rhodey with a simple kind of patience he only had when he was coming down to sobriety.

  
"Tony," Rhodey began, but Tony knew there was no heat to it, and watched him drop his gaze to the sheets.  
"Save it." He said, voice death-raspy but unwavering, "I didn't mean to."

  
"Bullshit," Rhodey snapped, looking at him with fury building behind his eyes and in the tremor of his voice, "Bullshit, Tony, you said you were disappointed you _woke up_." His volume was building, cascading in on itself in low crackling waves in his desperation to get Tony back. Tony didn't have the heart to tell him he hadn't ever been there.

He let his quiet fill the room, a method of non-response that was a response. Rhodey's eyes were tired and Tony wondered distantly if this was their breaking point. That should hurt, should resonate. It doesn't. Not even dimly.

"Whatever. I'm breathing." Tony said, finally, knowing full-well it was the wrong thing to say. He had a reputation to uphold, you know.

  
He watched Rhodey crumble, and resolutely did not register the guilt. Not even dimly.

  
Alone, he stared at the ceiling, and thought about absolutely nothing at all.


	2. Hypokeimenon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony continues to struggle. Friends are near.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heed the warnings, as stated previously.

Pre IM2

  
He was aware, this time. His fingers were shaking and his chest hurt and he was so, _so_ fucking sick of being a fuckup.

  
There were no words for how it felt in his chest. There was more than an ache, or a small pain. It was more like endless rending. Each movement brought shattering sparks of pain that radiated out from the core of him, and drew him further into this isolation. No one knew he dreamt of caves.

  
Sure, he had Pepper, a fact which lessened the dissociative nature of the ripping in his chest, but what sort of attachment did she have to him? No obligation, certainly. Probably not even fondness. He'd be an ache she'd forget.  
He didn't hate himself enough to dry-swallow everything.

  
He didn't even have to wait very long for the heaviness to climb into his bones. There was no room to struggle inside himself when fingers were encircling his wrist. There were fingers in his throat, too, pushing until he heaved and then smacking his face, and he heaved again and couldn't stop until he was left with that empty ache in his chest and the twisting bite of disappointment in his stomach.

  
"The fuck are you doing, Stark?" Rhodey growled, and of course it was Rhodey, it was always Rhodey who grappled at Tony when he took a calculated running-leap towards his preferred demise. "I thought things were better!"

  
He let out a clipped laugh, but to his ears it sounded more like defeat than joy. And he couldn't stop; it fell out of him unbidden.

  
"Better? _Better_ , Rhodey? If by "better" you mean that I wasn't complaining? The way I was drinking my heart out? Well, liver, actually, but-- what makes you think everything is, or ever was, fucking _peachy_?"

  
"Tony--"

  
"In fact, if you wanted to know, everything is grapefruit. It tastes like shit, smells like shit, and is a rather awkward color. I'm just--" his voice faltered and he sank back, "I'm just done. I want to be _done_."

  
Rhodey was shocked and Tony wondered how he could open his eyes that wide and not have his facial muscles spasm, "Wait, it's today, isn't it?" Tony closed his eyes and tried not to let the pain show. Sure, his parents were dead, but that was years ago, and it was definitely not the inspiration for this most recent attempt. He failed. "Fuck, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have blown you off--"

  
"It's not your fault." He didn't see the need in correcting Rhodey on his motives.

  
"No, it's not, but it's not yours, either," Rhodey said softly, more gentle than Tony had ever heard him. "None of it is, and it never has been."

  
Tony let out a shaky little sigh and had to do the closing-his-eyes thing again.

  
"So?" He prompted, finally.

  
"So stop thinking you have to cope on your own. You've been doing that too long." Rhodey's tone was carefully gentle, as placatingly smooth as the circles his hand was rubbing on Tony's shoulder.

  
"It's not... not coping. I'm not coping." His voice hitched, "I'm drowning. Too many ghosts to wade through to get better and I'm not.. I never have been strong enough."

  
"Then let me help you. Let Pepper help you. You don't have to be alone to do this."

  
Tony breathed steadily for a beat;

  
"Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter of this baseline triggery stuff, and then I'll make it better, okay?

**Author's Note:**

> There is more, and it will get better, but slowly. Please stick with it, I promise it'll end happily.


End file.
